Life of Lord Byron Volume V Part 21

"Lord Byron is greatly improved in every respect--in genius, in temper, in moral views, in health and happiness. His connection with La Guiccioli has been an inestimable benefit to him. He lives in considerable splendour, but within his income, which is now about four thousand a year, one thousand of which he devotes to purposes of charity. He has had mischievous pa.s.sions, but these he seems to have subdued; and he is becoming, what he should be, a virtuous man. The interest which he took in the politics of Italy, and the actions he performed in consequence of it, are subjects not fit to be written, but are such as will delight and surprise you.

"He is not yet decided to go to Switzerland, a place, indeed, little fitted for him: the gossip and the cabals of those Anglicised coteries would torment him as they did before, and might exasperate him into a relapse of libertinism, which, he says, he plunged into not from taste, but from despair. La Guiccioli and her brother (who is Lord Byron's friend and confidant, and acquiesces perfectly in her connection with him) wish to go to Switzerland, as Lord Byron says, merely from the novelty and pleasure of travelling. Lord Byron prefers Tuscany or Lucca, and is trying to persuade them to adopt his views. He has made _me_ write a long letter to her to engage her to remain. An odd thing enough for an utter stranger to write on subjects of the utmost delicacy to his friend's mistress--but it seems destined that I am always to have some active part in every body's affairs whom I approach. I have set down, in tame Italian, the strongest reasons I can think of against the Swiss emigration. To tell you the truth, I should be very glad to accept as my fee his establishment in Tuscany. Ravenna is a miserable place: the people are barbarous and wild, and their language the most infernal _patois_ that you can imagine. He would be in every respect better among the Tuscans.

"He has read to me one of the unpublished cantos of Don Juan, which is astonis.h.i.+ngly fine. It sets him not only above, but far above all the poets of the day. Every word has the stamp of immortality.

This canto is in a style (but totally free from indelicacy, and sustained with incredible ease and power) like the end of the second canto: there is not a word which the most rigid a.s.sertor of the dignity of human nature could desire to be cancelled: it fulfils, in a certain degree, what I have long preached,--of producing something wholly new, and relative to the age, and yet surpa.s.singly beautiful. It may be vanity, but I think I see the trace of my earnest exhortations to him, to create something wholly new. * * * *

"I am sure, if I asked, it would not be refused; yet there is something in me that makes it impossible. Lord Byron and I are excellent friends; and were I reduced to poverty, or were I a writer who had no claim to a higher station than I possess, or did I possess a higher than I deserve, we should appear in all things as such, and I would freely ask him any favour. Such is not now the case: the demon of mistrust and of pride lurks between two persons in our situation, poisoning the freedom of our intercourse. This is a tax, and a heavy one, which we must pay for being human. I think the fault is not on my side; nor is it likely,--I being the weaker.

I hope that in the next world these things will be better managed.

What is pa.s.sing in the heart of another rarely escapes the observation of one who is a strict anatomist of his own. * * *

"Lord Byron here has splendid apartments in the palace of Count Guiccioli, who is one of the richest men in Italy. She is divorced, with an allowance of twelve thousand crowns a year;--a miserable pittance from a man who has a hundred and twenty thousand a year.

There are two monkeys, five cats, eight dogs, and ten horses, all of whom (except the horses) walk about the house like the masters of it. t.i.ta, the Venetian, is here, and operates as my valet--a fine fellow, with a prodigious black beard, who has stabbed two or three people, and is the most good-natured-looking fellow I ever saw.

"Wednesday, Ravenna.

"I told you I had written, by Lord Byron's desire, to La Guiccioli, to dissuade her and her family from Switzerland. Her answer is this moment arrived, and my representation seems to have reconciled them to the unfitness of the step. At the conclusion of a letter, full of all the fine things she says she has heard of me, is this request, which I transcribe:--'Signore, la vostra bonta mi fa ardita di chiedervi un favore, me lo accorderete voi? _Non part.i.te da Ravenna senza Milord._' Of course, being now, by all the laws of knighthood, captive to a lady's request, I shall only be at liberty on _my parole_ until Lord Byron is settled at Pisa. I shall reply, of course, that the boon is granted, and that if Lord Byron is reluctant to quit Ravenna after I have made arrangements for receiving him at Pisa, I am bound to place myself in the same situation as now, to a.s.sail him with importunities to rejoin her.

Of this there is fortunately no need; and I need not tell you that there is no fear that this chivalric submission of mine to the great general laws of antique courtesy, against which I never rebel, and which is my religion, should interfere with my soon returning, and long remaining with you, dear girl. * *

"We ride out every evening as usual, and practise pistol-shooting at a pumpkin, and I am not sorry to observe that I approach towards my n.o.ble friend's exactness of aim. I have the greatest trouble to get away, and Lord Byron, as a reason for my stay, has urged, that without either me or the Guiccioli, he will certainly fall into his old habits. I then talk, and he listens to reason; and I earnestly hope that he is too well aware of the terrible and degrading consequences of his former mode of life, to be in danger from the short interval of temptation that will be left him."

LETTER 443. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, August 10. 1821.

"Your conduct to Mr. Moore is certainly very handsome; and I would not say so if I could help it, for you are not at present by any means in my good graces.

"With regard to additions, &c. there is a Journal which I kept in 1814 which you may ask him for; also a Journal which you must get from Mrs. Leigh, of my journey in the Alps, which contains all the germs of Manfred. I have also kept a small Diary here for a few months last winter, which I would send you, and any continuation.

You would find easy access to all my papers and letters, and do _not neglect this_ (in case of accidents) on account of the ma.s.s of confusion in which they are; for out of that chaos of papers you will find some curious ones of mine and others, if not lost or destroyed. If circ.u.mstances, however (which is almost impossible), made me ever consent to a publication in my lifetime, you would in that case, I suppose, make Moore some advance, in proportion to the likelihood or non-likelihood of success. You are both sure to survive me, however.

"You must also have from Mr. Moore the correspondence between me and Lady B. to whom I offered the sight of all which regards herself in these papers. This is important. He has _her_ letter, and a copy of my answer. I would rather Moore edited me than another.

"I sent you Valpy's letter to decide for yourself, and Stockdale's to amuse you. _I_ am always loyal with you, as I was in Galignani's affair, and _you_ with me--now and then.

"I return you Moore's letter, which is very creditable to him, and you, and me.

"Yours ever."

LETTER 444. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, August 16. 1821.

"I regret that Holmes can't or won't come: it is rather shabby, as I was always very civil and punctual with him. But he is but one *

* more. One meets with none else among the English.

"I wait the proofs of the MSS. with proper impatience.

"So you have published, or mean to publish, the new Juans? Ar'n't you afraid of the Const.i.tutional a.s.sa.s.sination of Bridge Street?

When first I saw the name of _Murray_, I thought it had been yours; but was solaced by seeing that your synonyme is an attorneo, and that you are not one of that atrocious crew.

"I am in a great discomfort about the probable war, and with my trustees not getting me out of the funds. If the funds break, it is my intention to go upon the highway. All the other English professions are at present so ungentlemanly by the conduct of those who follow them, that open robbing is the only fair resource left to a man of any principles; it is even honest, in comparison, by being undisguised.

"I wrote to you by last post, to say that you had done the handsome thing by Moore and the Memoranda. You are very good as times go, and would probably be still better but for the 'march of events'

(as Napoleon called it), which won't permit any body to be better than they should be.

"Love to Gifford. Believe me, &c.

"P.S. I restore Smith's letter, whom thank for his good opinion. Is the bust by Thorwaldsen arrived?"

LETTER 445. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, August 23. 1821.

"Enclosed are the two acts corrected. With regard to the charges about the s.h.i.+pwreck, I think that I told both you and Mr. Hobhouse, years ago, that there was not a _single circ.u.mstance_ of it not taken from _fact_; not, indeed, from any _single_ s.h.i.+pwreck, but all from actual facts of different wrecks[46]. Almost all Don Juan is _real_ life, either my own, or from people I knew. By the way, much of the description of the _furniture_, in Canto third, is taken from _Tully's Tripoli_ (pray _note this_), and the rest from my own observation. Remember, I never meant to conceal this at all, and have only not stated it, because Don Juan had no preface nor name to it. If you think it worth while to make this statement, do so in your own way. _I_ laugh at such charges, convinced that no writer ever borrowed less, or made his materials more his own. Much is coincidence: for instance, Lady Morgan (in a really _excellent_ book, I a.s.sure you, on Italy) calls Venice an _ocean Rome_: I have the very same expression in Foscari, and yet _you_ know that the play was written months ago, and sent to England: the 'Italy' I received only on the 16th instant.

"Your friend, like the public, is not aware, that my dramatic simplicity is _studiously_ Greek, and must continue so: _no_ reform ever succeeded at first[47]. I admire the old English dramatists; but this is quite another field, and has nothing to do with theirs.

I want to make a _regular_ English drama, no matter whether for the stage or not, which is not my object,--but a _mental theatre_.

"Yours.

"P.S. Can't accept your courteous offer.

"For Orford and for Waldegrave You give much more than me you gave; Which is not fairly to behave, My Murray.

"Because if a live dog, 'tis said, Be worth a lion fairly sped, A _live lord_ must be worth _two_ dead, My Murray.

"And if as the opinion goes, Verse hath a better sale than prose-- Certes, I should have more than those, My Murray.

"But now this sheet is nearly cramm'd, So, if _you will_, _I_ sha'n't be shamm'd, And if you _won't_, _you_ may be d.a.m.n'd, My Murray.

"These matters must be arranged with Mr. Douglas Kinnaird. He is my trustee, and a man of honour. To him you can state all your mercantile reasons, which you might not like to state to me personally, such as 'heavy season'--'flat public'--'don't go off'--'Lords.h.i.+p writes too much'--won't take advice'--'declining popularity'--deduction for the trade'--'make very little'--'generally lose by him'--'pirated edition'--'foreign edition'--'severe criticisms,' &c. with other hints and howls for an oration, which I leave Douglas, who is an orator, to answer.

"You can also state them more freely to a third person, as between you and me they could only produce some smart postscripts, which would not adorn our mutual archives.

"I am sorry for the Queen, and that's more than you are."

[Footnote 46: One of the charges of plagiarism brought against him by some scribblers of the day was founded (as I have already observed in the first volume of this work) on his having sought in the authentic records of real s.h.i.+pwrecks those materials out of which he has worked his own powerful description in the second Canto of Don Juan. With as much justice might the Italian author, (Galeani, if I recollect right,) who wrote a Discourse on the Military Science displayed by Ta.s.so in his battles, have reproached that poet with the sources from which he drew his knowledge:--with as much justice might Puysegur and Segrais, who have pointed out the same merit in Homer and Virgil, have withheld their praise because the science on which this merit was founded must have been derived by the skill and industry of these poets from others.

So little was Ta.s.so ashamed of those casual imitations of other poets which are so often branded as plagiarisms, that, in his Commentary on his Rime, he takes pains to point out and avow whatever coincidences of this kind occur in his own verses.

While on this subject, I may be allowed to mention one single instance, where a thought that had lain perhaps indistinctly in Byron's memory since his youth, comes out so improved and brightened as to be, by every right of genius, his own. In the Two n.o.ble Kinsmen of Beaumont and Fletcher (a play to which the picture of pa.s.sionate friends.h.i.+p, delineated in the characters of Palamon and Arcite, would be sure to draw the attention of Byron in his boyhood,) we find the following pa.s.sage:--

"Oh never Shall we two exercise, like twins of Honour, Our arms again, and _feel our fiery horses Like proud seas under us_."